Sections

Death penalty opponents hold a vigil outside a church on Tuesday, hours before the scheduled execution of Missouri death row inmate Russell Bucklew. Bucklew has been granted a reprieve because of a rare medical condition.

BONNE TERRE, Mo. — The U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday put on hold the execution of a Missouri inmate with a rare medical condition who challenged the state’s refusal to disclose the source of its lethal injection drug.

The justices said a lower federal court needs to take another look at the case of Russell Bucklew. He had been scheduled to be put to death at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday for the 1996 killing of a man during a violent crime spree, but Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito had blocked the execution late Tuesday while the full court considered the matter.

Bucklew would have been the first inmate put to death since last month’s botched execution in Oklahoma.

Bucklew, 46, suffers from a rare congenital condition — cavernous hemangioma — that causes weakened and malformed blood vessels, as well as tumours in his nose and throat. His attorneys say this and the secrecy surrounding the state’s lethal injection drug combine to make for an unacceptably high chance of something going wrong during his execution. Bucklew told The Associated Press last week that he is scared of what might happen during the process.

During Oklahoma’s April 29 execution, inmate Clayton Lockett had a vein collapse and he writhed on the gurney before eventually dying of a heart attack more than 40 minutes after the start of a procedure that typically takes roughly one-fourth of that time to complete.